a few weeks back i looked at some great
arcade fighters which
due to timing were released on systems
not quite up to the task back in the
late 80s and early 90s home gamers
salivated over arcade imagery and wanted
nothing more than their 8-bit home
systems to be able to replicate
those life-changing arcade experiences
so publishers made sure the screenshots
looked
up to task and then released games that
were
utter unplayable hogwash
this week it's time to look at some of
the greatest races from the golden
arcade age
and see how they translated across to
systems
like the zx spectrum commodore 64
amstrad cpc
and msx
developed by tatsumi in 1985
this was a mind-blowing experience
especially if you look
at what passed as racing games just a
year prior
to add further incredulity cockpit
versions of the cabinet actually had
an incredible panoramic triple screen
display
so you can imagine how keen spectrum
owners were to experience
the long-awaited port of the crack of
dawn on christmas morning 1988
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yeah maybe i'll look at whatever
presents i've got
now that's not to say this isn't an
impressive port
it is graphically impressive after all
that's what this series
is all about but what works in the
arcade works less well
on your grand 12-inch black and white
travel television
the main buggy sprite just occupies
so much space and when you combine that
would be sedate
5 frame per second trudging as it blocks
the entire road in the sky
it gets very difficult to interpret the
path ahead
and control the action
although that explosion effect was
pretty impressive for a spectrum
you can see how expectations move in a
short space of time as upon release
spectrum magazines gave it a largely
favorable review
however on its budget re-release in 1990
the same magazines gave roughly half the
score
with your sinclair saying what's most
unforgiving though is the game's deadly
slowness
which might just be bearable if not for
the speedometer which tells you
you were going at 227 miles per hour
smaller sprites and a quicker pace would
have made this game
infinitely better in fact a lot like the
commodore 64 version developed by dave
thomas
what's worse is although the speccy
version looks for part
publishers elite systems just slapped
arcade screenshots
all over the sleeve what was the point
if you thought buggy boy was
mind-blowing outrun was in a new league
get ready
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based on the 1985 hang on hardware but
with
faster clock speeds more memory and
increased drawing abilities
this is a game which still stands up
today we had
beautiful blue skies a rapid red ferrari
blistering roadside speeds multiple
choice routes
and an absolute banging soundtrack
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what you're witnessing is the msx
version imagine
playing the arcade version and then
coming home
to this you'd be weeping into your
cereal for
years to come like a lot of msx games
it's actually what's known as a lazy or
direct port of the zx spectrum version
all they've done is make things slightly
more colorful
including the ferrari but like most zx
spectrum ports
it relies on the same z80 code
but as the msx has slower access to its
screen memory
it almost always results in a slightly
slower game which can make
all the difference it's a shame because
msx games programmed from the ground up
making use of hardware sprites could be
pretty impressive
but it's not actually the worst
conversion
this is the amstrad cpc outrun on the
face of it
it looks colorful it looks like it could
be good
but jesus christ
that is far from the truth computer and
video games awarded
20 percent saying if you are really
determined to get a copy for your
amstrad
please please please ask for a
demonstration before you play it
it could save you a lot of heartache
there's no music for starters which
really wipes away the soul
of the outrun experience it's also dog
slow which takes another huge chunk away
but worst of all is the gameplay it's
half finished
if you're unlucky enough to hit a car
you'll stop
dead in the road absolutely dead
that is one of the most frustrating
features of any game i've ever played
it's not
a playable experience at all
get in the bin
of course sega were going to come back
and
improve on their earlier hang on success
and what better than to whack super on
the front
way before nintendo did it well a couple
of months anyway
now we get four tracks and a turbo
feature
plus it looks amazing we all know about
the mega drive release it was pretty
darn tasty
so you'd expect that software studios
responsible for
sailing enduro eraser
and afterburner would be equally as good
it's not looking great is it why do i
build things up like this
why why do i do it myself
what is that it looks like something out
of the power of hinges
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[Applause]
even the zx spectrum version is
instantly more recognizable
and playable well if you can get past
the stage select screen
at least
oh god my ears
look maybe i'm being a bit harsh when
cornering they look more like
biker sprouts but again it's horrendous
jerky it's a mess and the colors are a
bit grim
too this is not the super hang on that
i'm familiar with
the fact that the commodore 64 box has a
your sinclair review
for the spectrum version on the back
says all you need to know
just take super cycle on the commodore
released by epics in 1986
look at the speed difference it's
absolutely astonishing
you could have released super cycle as
the official super hang on and everyone
would have been happier
everyone rather than hanging on this one
can slip off
the edge of a cliff for all i care
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my favorite ever racer chase hq released
by taito
in 1988 this is one hell of a fun game
but used to regularly
wipe out my parents 10p stash there are
several reasons to it's fun too
the first is just the atmosphere it
exudes
from nancy calling in from chase
headquarters
to the little quips from brody
to be multiple track choices the falling
rocket launcher
and of course getting to smash perps off
the road
in a blaze of fiery glory what a
game so it always felt
astonishing to me how well ocean did
with the zx spectrum and amstrad
cpc ports somehow here were two ports
which
actually managed to capture all the
nuances and excitement
of the arcade cabinet on 8-bit hardware
the two games are an absolute master
class in how to do
it right given adequate time and
resources
so you'd expect the commodore 64 version
to be up there as well
especially as it's also released by
ocean
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who am i this is a very
different experience
from the loading screen alone you know
something has gone
terribly wrong look at their eyes
they've seen some horrible things
this game i imagine because as it turns
out
apart from the lackluster sid tune if it
was
nothing like the arcade experience this
dashboard looks like it should be
in a delorean time machine not a porsche
928
and those sounds
imagine if that's what real skidding
sounds were like
we'd never need traction control people
would just avoid it
entirely
zap magazine even remarked that the
budget four pound release was overly
expensive
for mere curiosity the whole affair is
janky cumbersome jerky unplayable
any fun the original had has well and
truly been
sponged up by this version verdict
fun sponge
which brings us on to hard driving a
game which well and truly lives up to
its name
even in the arcade atari's 1989
simulator-like experience
always struck me as a bit of an odd
arcade game but a worthy one
nonetheless now this was always going to
be a tricky one to get onto the 8-bit
machines
after all here was a new world filled
with 3d polygonal shapes
and tracks that looped the loop the
arcade cabinet needed several cpus to
run this
feast for the senses including a
motorola 68010
and various dedicated graphics
processors running at 50 megahertz
the spectrum had a single z80 cpu
running at 3.5 megahertz
so it was bound to be difficult for
programmers mike day
and matt furness
so it's slow it's choppy and it's
verging on
unplayable but it looks the part and if
you're dedicated you can get something
out of it now with 3d worlds clock speed
is of paramount importance
we're talking a lot of maths here and
the commodore 64 wasn't great in that
department
having a mos 6510 processor clocked at
just one megahertz
one
here's hard driving on the commodore 64.
no no if it were me
i would just have made a sprite based
game in the hard driving
world i would have made it look as close
as possible
without the polygons because this is a
joke it's
it's unreasonable this is more like it
this is actually an nes prototype
created by mark morris
for tengen but never saw the light of
day and it's a shame because it uses
some really
clever effects for example these loop
for loop sections are actually
pre-recorded
and simply played back when you tackle
them the game also employs a lot of
sprites
but then the c64 version also used some
sprites
and we still got this
imagine getting this as a kid imagine it
zap magazine awarded it an astonishing
20
saying about as much fun to drive as
harper c5
which i think is a little unfair half a
c5
still sounds like a pretty good time to
me
this is not a good time it's not even
close
to a good time and i'm sorry if you ever
had to go through it
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today
which brings this episode to a
close by the 90s races were getting
increasingly
three-dimensional and i think publishers
were beginning to realize
that these little machines just were not
up to the task
that's not to say there weren't more
games but i think
we've had enough for today i certainly
have
until next time i've been nostalgia nerd
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too
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you